We’ve all acquired cringe-worthy fundraising messages that simply don’t really feel fairly human. They’re obscure, don’t clarify the affect of the donation, and ask for an arbitrary sum of money. If an enchantment feels prefer it was written by a robotic, it probably was generated by AI.
Such subpar messages could be the motive that 63% of fundraisers really feel uncomfortable utilizing AI for customized donor communications. Whereas AI is commonly touted as a approach to hyper-personalize fundraising efforts, to many fundraisers, AI could make communications appear much less private, much less genuine.
However right here’s the factor: AI doesn’t should really feel creepily robotic or impersonal. When used thoughtfully, AI can really enable you be extra human and strengthen your genuine connections with donors. Its worth lies in fixing advanced, role-specific issues—like helping a fundraiser in making the fitting ask.
On this article, we’ll discover the facility in aligning AI applied sciences and methodologies by displaying you ways AI can help each stage of the ask, in the end serving to you increase extra {dollars} on your group, with out being creepy.
Beginning with the Finish in Thoughts: The Good Ask
Earlier than we bounce into AI’s capabilities, let’s cowl the weather of the right ask.
- Proper timing: When to make an ask is dependent upon quite a lot of components just like the donor’s curiosity, engagement, and giving historical past.
- Actual relationships: Making an ask for a donation instantly after assembly somebody is like asking to borrow a automobile from somebody you simply met—there isn’t sufficient belief constructed to warrant the interplay. As an alternative, fundraisers ought to create a collection of touchpoints, constructing the inspiration of the connection earlier than making the ask.
- Real interactions: While you make the ask, you don’t need it to really feel like a one-to-many communication. You need to know the donor nicely sufficient that you could reference private details, and pursuits, and make the request for a donation as for those who’re talking to a pal or colleague.
- Resonates with donor pursuits: Understanding what aligns (and what doesn’t) along with your donors’ pursuits can information when to and what to ask for.
- Acceptable quantity: Deciding on the correct amount is among the tougher facets of the ask. Request an excessive amount of and also you threat donors feeling overwhelmed or pressured. Ask for too little and also you miss out on alternatives on your group. Utilizing donor and prospect knowledge, equivalent to giving historical past and capability, can assist you identify the suitable quantity.
Setting the Basis: Pre-Ask Due Diligence
There are a lot of steps within the donor lifecycle earlier than an ask is made. Happily, AI may give you a leg up with every stage and, we promise, it received’t come off as creepy (for those who don’t let it).
Good Donor Analysis
As an alternative of spending hours Googling prospects, looking down LinkedIn profiles, and scanning your CRM for each ounce of data, let AI be your analysis assistant. AI can:
- Flag related information articles about donors’ pursuits that you need to use in your outreach
- Establish potential relationships between donors, equivalent to household, friendships, or colleagues
- Spotlight vital life occasions that may have an effect on giving
- Monitor engagement patterns throughout your communications
- Use donor location that can assist you decide who to arrange conferences with when touring and optimize routes for a number of donor visits
Professional Tip: Use fundraising-specific AI fashions to assist along with your analysis. For instance, Momentum’s free Chat-GPT is geared particularly towards main reward fundraisers.
The Artwork of Timing
As a result of AI can analyze huge quantities of knowledge in a short time, it excels at figuring out patterns that folks would possibly miss. Use AI to:
- Analyze previous giving historical past to foretell optimum ask timing—this will embody creating dynamic donor plans so you realize the perfect cadence of communications prior to creating the ask
- Monitor engagement metrics to establish when donors are most receptive
- Monitor donor conduct patterns to counsel the perfect contact instances
- Flag potential considerations, equivalent to slipping engagement or doable churn
Professional Tip: Use AI to trace seasonal giving patterns alongside private donor milestones. If a donor usually provides in This autumn but additionally makes particular items round their birthday, you may plan your outreach accordingly.
Personalization That Feels Genuine
Strive utilizing AI so as to add private touches to your communications at scale for all donors inside your portfolio:
- Create detailed donor profiles primarily based on interactions and pursuits
- Counsel dialog subjects aligned with donor passions
- Draft custom-made communication factors
- Generate customized affect tales related to every donor
Professional tip: When utilizing AI to draft communications, immediate it with examples of your best-performing donor messages. Say, “Write within the type of this profitable enchantment…” moderately than ranging from scratch.
Be taught why AI is a game-changer for main reward officers
Making the Ask: AI as Your Strategic Companion
Discovering the Proper Quantity
Certainly one of AI’s superpowers is its capacity to course of staggering portions of knowledge to counsel optimum ask quantities. While you immediate AI for its advice on the perfect quantity to ask for, it provides you an estimate primarily based on quite a lot of knowledge factors:
- Previous giving patterns
- Engagement stage
- Response to earlier asks
- Present involvement along with your group
- Current life occasions
- Giving to related organizations
Professional tip: Have a look at the AI-generated quantity first. Individuals are inclined to rely closely on the primary piece of data they obtain when making selections (also called anchoring bias). On this case, the primary donation quantity you see acts as an anchor and influences how a lot you’ll ask for. By asking AI first, your bias is geared towards a data-informed reply.
Crafting the Good Pitch
AI can assist you prep the ask by reviewing what labored up to now. Use AI to:
- Analyze profitable previous pitches for commonalities and ideas
- Establish language that resonates with related donor teams
- Counsel speaking factors primarily based on donor pursuits
- Put together responses to potential objections
Professional tip: Document your follow pitches and use AI to investigate your supply and pacing. You can too have AI analyze recordings of previous pitches to evaluate metrics like listening ratio, speaker engagement, and general emotional tone of the assembly.
Including the Human Contact to Cut back the Cringe
We’d be remiss to not tackle tips on how to keep away from being creepy when utilizing AI. Numerous the creepiness stems from both a scarcity of oversight of AI-related use circumstances or forgetting to include the human contact.
1. Add context. Don’t simply settle for AI solutions blindly. At all times ask your self:
- Does this align with what I do know concerning the donor?
- Would I say this in a face-to-face dialog?
- Does this replicate our group’s voice and values?
And if the reply isn’t sure, let AI know. You can present examples of what you’re on the lookout for or give particular suggestions on how AI’s response doesn’t suit your wants. AI learns by way of suggestions and adjusts because it learns extra about your group. Use this capacity to be taught to your benefit.
2. Prepare your AI instrument. In the identical vein, you may prepare your AI instruments with info particular to your group. This can assist AI present high-quality responses from the get-go. Give AI entry to:
- Your group’s distinctive voice
- Profitable previous communications
- Donor suggestions and preferences
- Your mission-specific language
3. Don’t use AI for every little thing. Simply because AI can do many issues doesn’t imply it ought to. Keep in mind, AI shouldn’t be a alternative on your job however a robust instrument that can assist you streamline your workflow and higher interact donors.
Two examples: you can use AI to create a word-for-word script of what to say in your subsequent name with a serious donor, or you can use AI to create a one-page temporary.
In the event you recite the script—cringe alert—you’ll sound unnatural, even robotic. However, for those who use the one-page temporary outlining current interactions, giving historical past, the donor’s pursuits, and speaking factors, you stroll into the decision ready, not scripted, not creepy.
Let AI deal with crucial background information:
- Knowledge evaluation and sample recognition
- Preliminary analysis and draft content material
- Assembly summaries and follow-up duties
- Engagement monitoring
However hold human management over the human components:
- Closing communication approval
- Relationship technique
- Private interactions
- The precise ask
The Ask: Give AI a Strive
The purpose isn’t to automate the whole fundraising course of. It’s to make use of AI strategically and with intention to make each interplay extra significant, extra private, and more practical.
Now it’s our flip to make the ask—are you able to take AI for a whirl? Discover AI options, like Momentum’s AI-powered Donor Engagement Platform. It helps you enhance your ask and attain the fitting donor on the proper time with the fitting message. Plus, it seamlessly connects with Blackbaud fundraising options that can assist you profit from your donor knowledge with Blackbaud’s Intelligence for Good.
